Hyperthroid cat can&#x27;t take meds, won&#x27;t eat y/d

My 14 year old cat is hyperthyroid. Upon diagnosis, the vet put her on methimazole. However, she had an extremely adverse reaction: She stopped eating, became severely HYPOthyroid, and developed pancreatitis to boot.

She was hospitalized 3 times during this ordeal. She was ultimately released on no thryroid meds, with follow-up. The plan was to get her eating again first and then re-test thyroid levels.

Well, we took her home and did syringe feeding. She would also eat small amounts of fancy feast on her own. We managed to help her put back on 0.25 lb this way, but her thyroid levels again went hyper. So the vet then put her on y/d diet.

Since she has been on y/d (only half a week so far), she has shown almost 0 interest in either the wet or dry, so almost 100% of her nutrition is coming from syringe feedings The vet has discussed a feeding tube if we are not able to help her put on more weight.

I feel trapped here: She can't take thryoid meds, and won't eat the y/d on her own. Yet she needs to gain weight and be eating on her own before she will be a candidate for radio iodine treatment. (She is up to 8.5 lb, they want her at 10.)

I will add that her behavior through all of this is impressively awesome: She is loving, grooms, plays, talks, etc. Were it not for the fact that she will not eat on her own, I wouldn't be able to tell that anything is wrong. This is a huge improvement over a couple of weeks ago when she was in terrible shape from the med reaction/pancreatitis. It pains me to think that I can't help her more!

Any ideas? Has anyone seen a cat initially dislike but then finally start to eat y/d diet? If we can get her eating it for a few months, she might get strong enough for radioactive iodine.

hi..did some reading...what dose of Methimazole was your kitty started on????

its very typical for Vets to start them on way too HIGH a dose making kitties very sick and many side effects.

this is what I learned.

too high a dose to start causes the T4 to fall fast and b/c the thyroid hormones are in delicate balance this causes a 'thyroid storm' which results in a very sick kitty.

the correct approach would have been to start at 1.25 or 2.5mg/day and VERY SLOWLY increase over a 2-4 week period. wait the 6 weeks to retest this gives the time to adjust.

than retest the T4 levels....if levels are down than no need to increase. if need be another 0.5mg can be added and again retest in 6 weeks.

even with cats that have had bad reactions from a previous high dose, this can again be started SLOWLY this time and be sucessful. a better choice is to get Methiz/Felimazole in a gel form, which can be applied to the inside of the ear and absorbed directly into the blood stream...this bypasses the GI tract thus no nausea or vomiting and other typical Meth/Felimazole side effects.
you can get it formulated in 0.25mg or 0.5mg per dose so its easier to move up and down in smaller increments.

unfortunately your experience is all too typical where Vets go straight to a high dangerous does of 5 or even 10mg/day :(((

feed him what he will eat!!!!
its most important that he eat, and many hate that awful y/d diet.....get him eating and gaining and retry that med. SLOWLY.....♥

hi...I am so sorry for your kitties problems and all you are doing to help the poor little thing....Im not much good at info for HyperT...but I do have a site by a Vet who is very very good at nutrition and and all the associated diseases, she has an excellent article on HyperT.
I will send this along, I sure hope her info helps you...I agree Hill's y/d does not have a good reputation. none of the Hill's products do.
read her article real good, and I will do some research too lets keep in touch and see what we can do for your dear little girl....bless you both

hi..did some reading...what dose of Methimazole was your kitty started on????

its very typical for Vets to start them on way too HIGH a dose making kitties very sick and many side effects.

this is what I learned.

too high a dose to start causes the T4 to fall fast and b/c the thyroid hormones are in delicate balance this causes a 'thyroid storm' which results in a very sick kitty.

the correct approach would have been to start at 1.25 or 2.5mg/day and VERY SLOWLY increase over a 2-4 week period. wait the 6 weeks to retest this gives the time to adjust.

than retest the T4 levels....if levels are down than no need to increase. if need be another 0.5mg can be added and again retest in 6 weeks.

even with cats that have had bad reactions from a previous high dose, this can again be started SLOWLY this time and be sucessful. a better choice is to get Methiz/Felimazole in a gel form, which can be applied to the inside of the ear and absorbed directly into the blood stream...this bypasses the GI tract thus no nausea or vomiting and other typical Meth/Felimazole side effects.
you can get it formulated in 0.25mg or 0.5mg per dose so its easier to move up and down in smaller increments.

unfortunately your experience is all too typical where Vets go straight to a high dangerous does of 5 or even 10mg/day :(((

feed him what he will eat!!!!
its most important that he eat, and many hate that awful y/d diet.....get him eating and gaining and retry that med. SLOWLY.....♥

My fur kids are not fans of any of the Science Diet products either. My dog was put on one of their prescriptions and he didn't want to eat it, and he is an eating machine! lol I don't know for sure if Royal Canin has a prescription diet for thyroid (they have a lot of prescription only foods) but at least ask your vet. Both my cats and dog prefer it over any Science Diet formulas. Hope this helps and good luck to you and you little one.

Thanks for the ideas. I don't know if the new vet will reconsider the medication. It was, very sadly, the case that the old vet immediately put her on a very high dose, instead of starting low and working up. We were told that hyperthyroid is very common, and so I didn't question the vet's treatment plan. Oh how I regret that!

Even when her dose was cut in half, she remained extremely hypo, which is why I think the new vet is even putting the meds on the table for now.

My cat still seems to have zero interest in the y/d (by Hills, not Science Diet) wet food, but she is starting to eat more of the dry. I can't blame her for not wanting the wet food: It has the consistency of damp shredded cardboard. She's always like the wet foods that are very moist or with gravy. This one is very dry for a canned food.

I read elsewhere that the y/d food is high in carbohydrates and is not the best in terms of quality ingredients. The real benefit is the dieatary control of thyroid. So I still hope to get her weight up with this food, but to then get the radioactive iodine treatment so that she can ultimately go back to eating better foods that she likes more.

She needs to gain at least 1.5 lbs AND be eating on her own before the radioactive treatment, so fingers crossed that she'll cooperate and eat this food!

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